Korean War vet places himself in danger again, as a Santa Rosa school crossing guard

Mario D’Olivo knows what happens in a war zone. He saw combat in Korea in 1953.

So he would never say that where he works now, in a school crosswalk on Santa Rosa’s Sonoma Avenue, is a war zone. But the post does have its perils.

“Drivers are going too fast, for one thing,” said the North Beach-born crossing guard. He could have retired long ago if he had a dollar for every motorist who has zipped through the crosswalk despite the red traffic signal overhead and the stop sign in his hand, or who’s breezed by in clear violation of the no-cellphone-while-driving law.

“About a half dozen a day run the red light,” he said.

D’Olivo is 86 years old and a retired longtime bartender. He likes the kids and parents and staffers at the school he serves, the Santa Rosa French-American Charter School, and he’s grateful to them for treating him as a member of their school family.

But he works because he has to. He’s had some tough breaks financially, and the necessity of caring for both his son and his mother through to their deaths prevented him from socking away much money for retirement. Before becoming a school crossing guard at age 72 he was a taxi driver and a custodian.

But he learned customer service from behind a bar.

“You’ve got to be cordial,” said D’Olivo, who was a young man when he started working at his father’s bar, George’s Tavern, in Millbrae. He took a break from the family business to serve with the army during the Korean War, then returned to George’s.

“It was a neighborhood bar,” D’Olivo said. “We served the same people every day.”

His Italy-born father died in 1961 at just 53, and he took over running the joint. The family sold George’s Tavern in 1973 and D’Olivo went to work for the Hyatt in Burlingame, rising to head bartender.

He was at the Hyatt for 14 years, then moved on to other hotels and taverns. While working various other jobs, he tended to his ailing mother for a dozen years.

She died in 2000. The following year, housing prices lower than those in San Francisco drew D’Olivo to Santa Rosa, where he purchased a mobile home at the south end of town.

D’Olivo said he has to work because his monthly Social Security benefits of $1,292 don’t cover all his expenses. He said he could still tend bar, but he applied for work at several local taverns and none would hire him.

So 14 years ago, he became a crossing guard with All City Management Services of Los Angeles. It provides crossing guards to Santa Rosa schools through a contract with Santa Rosa City Schools.

Not too long before he was assigned to Sonoma Avenue nine years ago, when the school was named Doyle Park School, he was working the crosswalk on Sebastopol Road at Cook Middle School.

“That’s where I got run down,” he said.

D’Olivo stepped into the crosswalk with his stop sign raised and a car shot past, brushing him and knocking him down. He was bruised and ever more aware of the danger posed by inattentive or scofflaw drivers. That incident was the only time he’s been hit by a car, but he said he’s had close calls - and not just with automobiles.

“I’ll tell you who else is dangerous,” he said. “The bicycle riders.”

His experience in front of the French-American school has taught him older cyclists obey the crosswalk signal and his hand-held stop sign, but some younger riders barrel through.

The crossing guard’s No. 1 complaint is that so many motorists seem not to know or care that the speed limit in a school zone when children are present is 25 mph. It looks to him that many of the cars passing by the school as students arrive in the mornings or leave in the afternoons are moving at 45 mph or faster.

D’Olivo’s hours at the crosswalk are from 8:05 to 8:50 a.m. and 2:30 to 3:15 p.m.

He sometimes has to remind parents or kids of his first rule: Only he pushes the button that switches the crosswalk signal lights from green to red.

It might seem like a little thing, but D’Olivo said because he is watching the traffic and the approach of parents and children to the crosswalk, it’s important he time the switching of the light. So adults and kids who reach for the button are likely to hear from him.

Sometimes the army veteran counts how many times a day he pushes the button, then holds up the flashing stop sign, enters the crosswalk, steps to the center of the street and motions to the pedestrians at the curb that it’s safe for them to cross.

Generally in the course of his daily 90 minutes on the job, he said, he repeats that routine 63 times.

And every day, he said, he looks forward to greeting the youngsters and their parents and teachers. They all made a big deal over him last year when All City Management Services declared him “Crossing Guard of the Year.”

D’Olivo smiles recalling the student who comes along to drop off or pick up a sibling.

“Every morning,” he said, “he has to give me a fist bump.”

Six months from turning 87, the crossing guard said the job does more than allow him to pay his bills.

“It gets me up in the morning.”

Chris Smith is at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.